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2 years ago, Olympus announced (and subsequently released) its first lens with an f/1.2 maximum aperture, the M.Zuiko ED 25mm f1.2 PRO. I added this lens to my bag about a year ago, partially on the recommendation of Marius Masalar.

It has not disappointed.

Its images are unlike anything I've ever been able to create before. Olympus describes the rendering of the out-of-focus areas as "feathered" bokeh, which is about an apt of a description as any.
Check out Marius's review here.

In modern sports, the great photography is often taken for granted. This story from Clive Brunskill details the challenges of shooting the 2008 Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.

“It got to the point that it got so dark, I had to put my fastest lense on for match point...And I just remember thinking, I can’t even see him. All I could see was the white of his outfit and I was thinking ‘Where is he going to go?’” he said.

In the span of 10 years, our equipment has changed so much. The fact that he got thatpicture with that experience is simply incredible.

This, from Barry Svrluga and Isabelle Khurshudyan is a great look back at the season that almost wasn't, before it became the one that was THE one. The whole piece is worth a read, but this, from the conclusion really does a great job encapsulating it all:

Before the final faceoff in Holtby’s end, Ovechkin stood behind Backstrom on the bench, hugging him. When the horn sounded, the Swede leaped over the boards, the Russian looked to the sky, and a human pile decades in the making grew at one end of the ice.

“It was like we were a bunch of little kids again,” Niskanen said.
What an innocent thought for such a hard-earned moment. Just a little more than 12 months earlier, the Capitals had dissected not just goals that hadn’t been reached but whether they could be reached at all.

On Thursday night in Las Vegas, when Ovechkin lifted the Stanley Cup and handed it to Backstrom, the pain felt like a necessary part of the journey.

This season's group of Washington Capitals wasn't their most talented of the Ovechkin/Backstrom era, but ultimately it turned into the best one.

Congratulations Alex and Nick and Evgeny and Braden and John and Jay and Brooks and all the rest; you earned it.

In DC, we haven't stopped celebrating, and we will continue to tomorrow at the parade.

Darkroom is my go-to editing app on the iPhone 8 Plus. The newest update introduces some truly magical editing capabilites for Portrait Mode photos. In addition to new filters that use the depth information of a portrait mode photo, the update has also given us editing tools for independently controlling the brightness, saturation, and blur characteristics of the foreground and background. I couldn't recommend this app more highly.

Original

Edited

On the left is a normal portrait mode photo I took of my dog, Lucy. On the right, the same shot, but with one of Darkroom's P400 Portrait filter applied (along with some tweaks to the background blur itself).

Original

Edited

Again, on the left, a normal portrait mode photo I took of my breakfast one morning. On the right, that same shot, but with P100 (and various tweaks) applied.

This update is simply another in a long line of great updates to this application. I can't wait to see what's next.